A brave new world: How digital innovation is transforming animal health

Teams from Boehringer Ingelheim will visit a few pig farms in the United States this spring on a mission born of relentless digital innovation. Their goal: To test the power of technology to keep animals healthy and help farmers increase efficiency. 

In several pig barns, crews will install high-tech microphones that hint of things to come. The microphones form a key part of a digital monitoring tool from SoundTalks NV, a Belgian company. The tool records the sounds that pigs make 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It relies on an algorithm to detect changes in swine coughing patterns before most human ears hear them. The SoundTalks system sends an alert to an app on a farmer’s phone when it detects signs of respiratory distress. Farmers also can access the info online.

In an early trial with about 60 units in the Midwest, the SoundTalks system detected increased coughing in pigs three or four days before a farmer noticed, said Dr. Jens Kjaer, who is implementing a controlled launch of SoundTalks’ system in the United States for Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health USA Inc. After units detected the increased coughing, people caring for the pigs collected oral fluid samples, and laboratory tests of those samples confirmed the onset of a respiratory disease.

Detecting increased coughing in swine early lets farmers and veterinarians collect samples and get a diagnosis more quickly, potentially improving the health of sick pigs and limiting the risk of exposure to nearby animals. That could boost a producer’s bottom line in an industry where respiratory and other diseases claim an untold number of pigs and cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Experts from Boehringer Ingelheim plan to start installing SoundTalks’ system this spring with select customers in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Minnesota. The microphones typically go on the ceiling of a pig barn. They are connected to devices that send data to the cloud.

Boehringer Ingelheim also is installing the SoundTalks system this spring in other major swine markets around the world. The installations represent a pilot program and real-world test of how emerging technology may help swine producers. The company plans to collect feedback from farmers and use it to determine the potential of SoundTalks.

‘It’s all about the data’

The innovation that yielded the launch of SoundTalks’ system is part of a larger Boehringer Ingelheim commitment to take advantage of rapid technological change to offer diagnostic and monitoring solutions that help livestock and pets and the people who own and care for them.

The SoundTalks system puts information in the farmer’s hands, equipping him or her with information to make timely business decisions.

“It’s all about the data that the farmers get,” Kjaer said. “The quicker you can treat the pig, the less impact it will have on the pig’s growth.”

Along with other technologies already on the farm and more that are on the way, SoundTalks’ system heralds a new era, said Dr. Dale Polson, global technical manager of integrated health for the Diagnostics & Monitoring business at Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health.

“We are entering an era in which producers will get real-time, decision-ready information,” he said.

Polson sees the pace of change increasing quickly.

“It’s already radically changing,” he said. “It’s going to be a brave new world for animal health and livestock production.”

A time of transformational change

Boehringer Ingelheim’s pilot program with SoundTalks unfolds as rapid technological change transforms an array of industries. Companies around the globe are racing to apply artificial intelligence, machine learning, the Internet of Things, facial-recognition software and data analytics to leverage the power of real-time data to solve real-world problems, a trend that some have dubbed the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0.

In animal health, the spread of new technologies has given rise to smart devices for dogs and cats and precision livestock farming, which holds the potential to optimize operations and improve animal wellbeing. The market for pet wearables alone will reach a few billion dollars in the next few years, analysts have said.

“Pet wearables obviously are a very interesting market,” said Robert Hof, global head of digital for Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health.

Sensors attached to and located around livestock, coupled with the power of algorithms to detect patterns in reams of data, have the potential to provide actionable insights that save time and money, Polson said.

“The idea is, ‘Does the animal behave normally? Does the animal eat and drink normally? Are the animal’s vital signs within normal ranges? Does its behavior suggest lameness? Does its behavior suggest sickness? Does its behavior suggest that it is ready to be bred?’” he said.

At Boehringer Ingelheim, researchers are investigating a number of ways that technology could help livestock and pets. The company demonstrated its commitment to innovation by its creation in 2017 of BI X GmbH, an independent subsidiary at the company’s global headquarters in Ingelheim, Germany. The BI X team focuses on developing breakthrough digital solutions for the company’s three business areas—human pharma, animal health and biopharmaceuticals.

On the farm, innovations offer the prospect of immediate, tangible benefits – faster detection of respiratory distress that enables diagnosis of disease, for example. A tool such as the SoundTalks system could limit the risk that a sick pig will cause its neighbors to get sick too. That could translate into fewer doses of antibiotics at a time when swine producers see increasing consumer interest in limiting antibiotic use in farm animals.

The collection and analysis of vast quantities of data offers the possibility of other transformative benefits, particularly if artificial intelligence looks for trends in the data, Hof said.

“As we collect more and more data, we’ll be able to identify if and how things affect each other,” Hof said.

The company is exploring a range of options to use technology to help livestock and pets, including collaborating with companies that use sensing technologies to predict diseases in livestock and pets, said Henry Berger, global head of marketing, strategy and customer experience for Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health’s Diagnostics & Monitoring business.

In the past, he said, animal health focused mostly on treating animals. Then came a major emphasis on prevention. Now Berger sees a shift toward animal care, which encompasses a concern for an animal’s welfare and comfort and, for livestock farmers, additional momentum toward increased production efficiency.

“We are at an inflection point in animal health,” he said.

Rising population, incomes and the Internet of Things

The wave of digital innovation washing over the animal-health industry comes amid other changes that have increased pressure on livestock farmers to increase efficiency.

For one thing, the world population will go from roughly 7.5 billion in 2017 to 9.7 billion by 2050, according to a 2017 United Nations report, increasing demand for meat and other sources of protein. More people living in more places could mean less land for livestock production. And the booming population may make water a scarcer resource in some parts of the world.

Meanwhile, rising incomes have ushered about half the world into the middle class, a group that is on track to reach 4 billion by 2021 and 5 billion by 2027, when it will represent 60 percent of the world’s population, the Brookings Institution said in 2017. That trend also will increase demand for sources of protein such as pork and beef.

These factors will exert pressure on livestock farmers to increase efficiency at the very time that technological innovation makes that possible, Berger said. In fact, forecasters expect the global veterinary diagnostics market to grow at a 9.3 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2017-2022, to $3.6 billion, according to a July 2018 report from Research and Markets.

The SoundTalks system represents one foray into that market for Boehringer Ingelheim that falls into a broad category known as the Internet of Things, an umbrella term that refers to systems that use sensors to record and transmit data, such as a sensor in the soil providing a farmer with information about moisture and fertilizer levels. The Internet of Things relies on network connectivity, whether by Wi-Fi, 4G or 5G or some other source. As the cost of deploying smart devices has declined, people in homes, factories, office buildings, factories and cities have started to capture a tremendous amount of data, the Information Technology and Innovation Forum said in a report from 2018.

“The Internet of Things produces myriad economic and social benefits, with applications as diverse as sensor-equipped bridges that can alert authorities when there is a risk of structural failure and devices in waterways that can warn environmental regulators about spikes of fatally toxic algae,” the forum’s report said.

“The Internet of Things has a wide variety of potential applications thanks to better and cheaper sensors that can record everything from temperature and light to sound, humidity, chemical composition, pressure, and other factors.”

“A dizzying array of changes are on the horizon,” Polson said.

“We are at an inflection point where we will see the pace of adoption of precision livestock farming technology accelerate dramatically.”

SoundTalks is a trademark of SoundTalks NV.